“Of Rebekah Taylor, who after her return from captivity, gave me the following account:—That when she was going to Canada, on the back of Montreal river, she was violently insulted by Sampson, her bloody master, who without any provocation was resolved to hang her; and for want of a rope, made use of his girdle, which when he had fastened about her neck, he attempted to hoist her up on the limb of a tree (that hung in the nature of a gibbet), but in hoisting her, the weight of her body broke it asunder; which so exasperated the cruel tyrant that he made a second attempt, resolving if he failed in that, to knock her on the head; but before he had power to effect it, Bomaseen came along, and seeing the tragedy on foot, prevented the fatal stroke.” [Illustration] YALE COLLEGE AT NEWHAVEN. * * * * * Yale College was founded in the year 1700, sixty-five years after the erection of the first house in the Colony of Connecticut. Ten of the principal ministers, nominated by general consent of the clergy, met at New Haven, and formed themselves into a society, the object of which was to found a college in the colony. At their next meeting each brought a number of books, and presented them for the library, and the following year the Legislature granted them a charter, constituting them “Trustees of a Collegiate School in his Majesty’s Colony of Connecticut.” The principal benefactor of the infant institution was the Hon. Elihu Yale, of London, Governor of the East India Company. This gentleman was descended from a family in Wales, which for many generations held the manor of Plas Grannow, near Rexon. His father, Thomas Yale, Esq., came from England with the first colonists of New Haven. In this town, Elihu, the subsequent benefactor of the College, was born, and at ten years of age he was sent to England. Thence he went to Hindostan, and after twenty years’ residence, was made Governor of Madras. He returned to London with an immense fortune, was chosen Governor of the East India Company, and died at Rexon in 1721. “This gentleman,” says the College historian, “sent, in several donations, to the Collegiate School, five hundred pounds sterling; and a little before his death, ordered goods to be sent out to the value of five hundred pounds more; but they were never received. In gratitude for this munificence, the Trustees, by a solemn act, named their seminary Yale College; a name which, it is believed, will convey the memory of his good works to distant generations.”